


Blast Zone

by Mertiya



Series: Story Circle [33]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: M/M, Month of the Ship, Trapped, Tumblr Prompt, new ship christening, ribbon lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 12:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18550246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Ral rescues his boyfriend.  They're still stuck.





	Blast Zone

**Author's Note:**

> ALL I HAVE ON TOMIK TILL TUESDAY IS HALF A PAGE FROM THE ARTBOOK WE DIE LIKE MEN
> 
> for the prompt "trapped together"
> 
> for my hundredth mtg fic apparently i am christening a new ship :3c

            “Fuck,” Ral swore, slamming his fist into stone. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.” There was one tiny ray of sunshine bleeding between the stones piled around them. It was probably mocking him. Beside him, his companion groaned, eyelids fluttering, and Ral turned back to him, kneeling beside him. Dazed hazel eyes stared back at him from beneath a rivulet of blood trickling down from a swollen knot nearly in the center of his forehead just beneath his hairline.

            “Ral,” Tomik said hoarsely.

            “Are you alive?” Ral blurted stupidly.

            Tomik groaned again, then chuckled. “It might be easier if I weren’t, you know. Don’t give me that look. My parents have been dead for years, and it hasn’t slowed them down in the slightest.”

            Ral sat back on his heels. “Fucking Orzhov,” he grunted. Putting out a trembling hand, he slid a thumb across Tomik’s cheek, and the other man blinked at him.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Touching you. Asshole.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I thought you were _dead_. Because we’re stuck in a collapsed chamber in the middle of Orzhova and we might both die anyway. Because—” _Because I didn’t protect you well enough._ Technically, he probably should have kept up his double agent façade for a few more hours, but the moment he’d seen that explosion hit the citadel—Ral gritted his teeth. They were still both alive. The sunlight proved they even had some air. Of course, Ravnica was tearing itself apart out there, so who knew how long this pocket was going to stay uncollapsed?

            Ral wasn’t good at this. He wasn’t good at touching or feelings or having time for somebody else. And this was literally the worst time for him to have time for anything that wasn’t saving Ravnica.

            “I’m all right,” Tomik said, sounding stronger. With a grunt, he pulled himself up into a sitting position. “It’s just a headache.”

            “You took a piece of falling masonry to the skull,” Ral growled. “It’s not just a headache.”

            Tomik gave him a wan smile. “Is it still bleeding?”

            Ral squinted at him. “I don’t think so.”

            “Then it’s just a headache.”

            With a sigh, Ral scooted nearer. “I hate you, and also you’re stupid,” he told Tomik.

            The advokist chuckled. “I take it that’s why you threw yourself on top of me to protect me from a collapsing citadel.”

            Ral closed his eyes, slid his hand sideways and tentatively put it over Tomik’s. “Obviously,” he said tiredly. “Why else?”

            Tomik turned his hand over and squeezed Ral’s. “A particular contract, perhaps?”

            “Yeah,” Ral said, after a moment. “Yeah. Sorry I didn’t get you out of here as well.”

            “It’s not the worst situation I’ve been in.” Slowly, Tomik got to his feet. “It’s going to be difficult to get out without help, though.”

            Following suit, Ral found himself hovering concernedly behind the Orhov advokist. Tomik was probably right that the head injury wasn’t anything to write home about in the grander scheme of things, but it still looked ugly, and Ral wouldn’t put it past the other man to get dizzy and keel over because he was focusing too hard on the problem at hand. Not that Ral himself had never done anything like that, he thought irritably. Why, after years of perfectly quiet science experiments, was he now falling for everyone who crossed his path? He didn’t have time for the emotions. He didn’t want the emotions. He didn’t—

            Tomik was rubbing his hands carefully across the stone rubble. “Hrm,” he said. “Maybe we should wait for someone to find us. I’m a little afraid if we try to move anything from in here the whole thing will collapse.”

            “Yeah.” Ral brushed his hand across the stone as well. He wasn’t great at earth magic, but the Orzhov put an insane number of wardings into their walls—apparently not enough to stop them from collapsing, but then the citadel _had_ taken a direct hit—and after the Implicit Maze Ral was _really_ good at tracing manaflow intuitively. And he could feel the warping distortion in the wards, could feel the way they crisscrossed one another—which they weren’t supposed to be doing—and, worse, he could feel the way the stones were straining against one another, the delicate balance that kept the whole house of cards from coming down and crushing the two of them.

            For the third time, he reached out to touch Tomik. He was asking for something, and he didn’t even know what it was. Tomik turned at the touch this time, stepping into Ral’s embrace and resting his head on the junction of Ral’s shoulder and neck. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

            “I know that,” Ral snapped. “Everything’s under control.” Tomik gave him a tired but faintly amused look. “Mostly.” Once again, he found himself cupping Tomik’s face with one hand, got a raised eyebrow and another amused smile, but Tomik didn’t pull away as Ral guided their lips together.

            One moment, one heartbeat of safety at the center of the storm raging on the plane, and then a voice spoke in Ral’s head. _Ral, are you in there?_

            A bolt of lightning spat from Ral’s hand to the ground. Timing, asshole. _You’re going to have to be more specific, Beleren._

He got an image shoved at him of the outside of the citadel. “I think help’s on the way,” Ral told Tomik hoarsely.

            “Told you,” Tomik responded wearily, though he sagged against Ral a little.

            _Yeah, we’re in here. Can you get us out?_

            _Nissa’s going to reinforce the wall with plants and then we’ll get Chandra to, uh, make a hole in the side, okay? Just hang on._

Hang on. He could do that, Ral thought shakily, his hands now anchored on Tomik’s waist. They were going to be okay. Plane still burning down around them, but he supposed they could deal with that in a few minutes. They were going to be okay.


End file.
